Archive for Ryder

We have a new generation of transportation management systems (TMS) based upon more powerful in-memory technologies. What this has created are more advanced transportation simulation capabilities. The way this works is that a user would have dual instances of the TMS. They would have an operational TMS that continues to plan, manage, and execute transportation moves. They would also have a simulation/test environment that can take months of actual historical shipment data (forecast data can […]

From the family room, I heard my 11-year old son crying in the kitchen being consoled by my wife. I assumed it was related to something that had happened at school that day. I was right about the school part, but wrong about the reason. In science class that day, the teacher was trying to get a point across to the class, and in her attempt to relate it to something the kids could understand, […]

“Did you come to Denver to plant mango trees?” the taxi driver asked me shortly after we left the airport. He had a thick accent, so I thought I had misunderstood his question. “Excuse me?” I said leaning forward, and so he asked me again, “Did you come to Denver to plant mango trees?” The taxi driver was originally from the Congo, and his younger brother had come to America too, and he did well […]

It’s a rite of passage for the most serious of shoppers. Black Friday. It conjures up images of long lines of intrepid bargain-hunters camped out overnight. Stampedes when the doors open. And frenzied crowds ready to drop-kick their way to door-busting prices on the year’s hottest products. Aside from the sheer entertainment (or blood sport) value, Black Friday marks more than the start of the holiday season when retailers make most of their annual profits. […]

Is it ironic that the U.S. government partially shut down on Tuesday, the same day I was scheduled to give a talk on collaboration? I’m thinking of sending my representatives in Congress a copy of the book Getting to We, written by my friends Kate Vitasek and Jeanette Nyden — and also inviting them and all members of Congress to participate in my upcoming conversation with Kate and Jeanette on Talking Logistics. You never know, […]

I went to Home Depot earlier this week to return a purchase, and the customer in front of me wanted to exchange a defective power tool with the same model, but he couldn’t find any on the shelf even though the store’s inventory system said 5 units were in stock. For all the talk about Big Data, omni-channel fulfillment, and other sexy technology, at the end of the day, bad data (and in many cases, […]

I’m working on developing a supplier selection tool for Transportation Management Systems (TMS), and one form of optimization a TMS can support is “continuous moves.” I wanted to learn more about continuous moves and so I called several of our Logistics Viewpoints sponsors to discuss this topic. First of all, what is a continuous move? Continuous moves involve a shipper stringing loads together for their carrier, so that the carrier can better utilize a particular […]

When it comes to your transportation capacity and network, making sure you have the drivers, capacity and on-time delivery performance you need often comes down to an essential, but often-overlooked element: collaboration. Given a steadily recovering economy, growing demand, an increasingly complex regulatory environment, intensifying driver shortage and capacity constraints, being proactive and willing to “work across the aisle” is becoming a requirement. Especially when you consider that capacity is never a one-size-fits-all scenario. Volumes […]

My cousin Lenny shared this photo on Facebook (the boys are not us, although the socks and shorts look familiar) with the following comment: “If u know about this game, u lived a great childhood.” The photo brought back so many great memories of my summers in Brooklyn — the concrete heat, the boombox music, the bloody scraped knees…and when it got hot, we grabbed the monkey wrench, opened the johnny pump, and took turns […]